Reality vs perception

I went to a writing workshop run by one of my clients last week. Writers and account managers from 4 creative agencies, all of us there to pick up their new tone of voice guidelines.

I thought it would be a listening/taking notes kind of thing. Oh no. We had to do live writing exercises. Ugh. I am not a performing monkey. I craft, I consider (at work, at least – you guys get the stream of consciousness shit). And I HATE reading my work out loud to others. Double ugh.

So I did it, and then in the car on the way home, I indulged in a good half hour of self-loathing. WHY did I say that? Why did I behave like THAT? My copy was shit – and had to read it out to all of those PEOPLE! WHY am I doing this job? I am shit at it. God I was ANNOYING in that meeting. Why can’t I be less… ME?

I just wanted to crawl out of my own skin and die.

One of my friends has just started seeing an account manager from one of the other agencies there that day. I’d never met her before the workshop, and my friend and I caught up on the phone earlier this week.

“So you finally met X, then… She said you came across really well in that meeting. She really liked the way you tackled the copy exercises, the fact that you took a different approach, that you obviously thought about it. She really liked you – and she was impressed.”

It’s entirely possible she was being kind. Or that we were in different meetings. Or that she muddled me up with someone else.

I used to be confident about my pure writing skills. The conceptual side of my job always brings out the self-doubter/hater in me, but the writing comes easily. Which means it’s not something I’m especially proud of. There’s no effort involved, it doesn’t really stretch me.

And when you lose confidence in something that’s always come effortlessly to you, well… that’s bad.

I hope X was right.

–

PS. The cat survived her surgery. She only has 4 teeth left now though. Eep. She comes home next Tuesday…

Yep, same here. I find myself rubbish, laughable, feel like a compleet fraud, and others just lap it up… I’ve come to realise they’re probably more right than me. And your writing is amazing.
PS. What’s the cat’s name?